Interacting with contracts is becoming an everyday part of life. Renters and landlords sign a written contract (i.e., a lease) to establish each party's rights and responsibilities with respect to the property being rented. A home purchase typically requires the buyer's signature on multiple documents/contracts to establish the buyer's responsibility to pay the mortgage and not rescind the offer that was agreed upon and the seller's responsibility that the seller keeps the promises that were warranted. Consumers download a piece of software on their computers and have to click “I Agree” to accept the terms of an end user license agreement. Employees sign an employment agreement binding them to the company's rules and regulations while employed and sometimes, thereafter.
For the people that draft these contracts, the language in each contract clause and/or the contract as a whole is important. Therefore, the language needs to be assessed to protect the client's interests. For some contractual situations, hours, days and/or weeks are spent ensuring the “right” or correct language is used to address the specific needs of the situation. This is done through drafting and, sometimes, negotiation. However, a common challenge that contract drafting personnel face is determining if he/she is using the most beneficial language for the client's situation.
Currently, a known approach to analyzing contracts and contract clauses includes a manual component of asking another person, perhaps someone with more expertise on the subject, which language is best for the situation. While having access to this type of expertise may provide some benefit, the person drafting the contract may not have time to reach out to another individual and/or that individual might be too busy to lend his/her expertise. In addition, the individual being asked may know more about the area than the person drafting but may not be a true expert.
Another known approach is looking through other contracts and contract clauses. For example, some law firms might have a document repository where all the contracts are stored. A lawyer searches the repository to bring up a particular set of contracts and/or contract clauses that might be applicable to the client's situation. However, this type of system does not analyze the contracts and contract clauses to determine what might be the “market standard” language. Market standard language refers to language that is generally accepted by members of a market. For example, the market standard language for a non-compete clause in a salesperson's employment agreement might be different than the market standard language for a non-compete clause in an engineer's employment agreement.
Additionally, each known approach described above consumes a tremendous amount of valuable time. For example, when attempting to engage an individual with more expertise, the drafter may have to work around the individual's schedule which may be cumbersome and time consuming. In addition, that individual may not have the time necessary to discuss the various options of contract language. In another example, when searching other contracts and clauses, several precious hours may be wasted trying to find the necessary language for the drafter's scenario with the potential for little to no success. This practice is inconvenient and wastes multiple hours of researching language instead of focusing on other important aspects like, for example, the discussion and negotiation with opposing counsel.
Accordingly, the inventors have recognized the necessity for additional improvements in analyzing conceptually-related portions of text, in particular contracts and contract clauses.